Volkswagen has announced that it will start production of an electric variant of its world-famous Microbus. The German carmaker expects to market the vehicle from 2022.
High demand for
The electric bus, dubbed the I.D. Buzz, is part of Volkswagen's Strategy 2025: an expansion of the number of electric Volkswagen models, which should exceed 30 by 2025. The first four-door car in this line, the Volkswagen I.D, was presented at the Paris Motor Show in September last year and will be launched in 2019.
Volkswagen decided to put the bus, which was an icon in the Flower Power era, into production after it created a lot of demand after presentations in Detroit and Geneva, among others. "Many people then said: please build this car!" said Dr Herbert Diess, Volkswagen's managing director.
Car floor
Like the concept car, the production variant of the I.D. BUZZ will also be an electric car, with the batteries concealed in the car floor. The powertrain takes up little space, so it is possible to set the front and rear axles very far apart. As a result, the wheelbase is long, overhangs are small and interior space can be maximised.
This I.D. Buzz has a large 111 kWh battery under the floor and an electric motor for each axle. Good for an output of 370 hp, a sprint time of about 5 seconds and a driving range of over 400 km. But instead of a four-wheel-drive car, it could just as easily be a rear-wheel-drive car with 268 hp and a smaller (85k Wh) battery. The chassis is the EIA architecture. The company worked that out to base its entire electric model range on. The study model I.D. BUZZ is 4.942 metres long, 1.976 metres wide and 1.963 metres high. The car that will eventually go into production will use a new ground architecture called the EIA architecture. The company worked out this architecture as the basis for its entire electric model range. In doing so, the I.D. Buzz borrows many design elements from the concept car.
Retracting steering wheel
The concept bus is designed to drive autonomously, just like the first I.D. concept compact car. It has a rectangular steering wheel that retracts into the dashboard when not in use. The driver's seat can then be turned around so the driver can talk to the other occupants. Whether the final bus will also have a straight steering wheel remains to be seen. During test drives, this still appeared to feel fairly unnatural to the test drivers.
In addition to a passenger variant, a van version of the I.D. Buzz will also be launched on the market. "It is an ideal concept for a van, especially for inner-city driving," said Dr Eckhard Scholz, managing director of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. "The I.D. BUZZ Cargo is very suitable for clean distribution traffic and will be a semi-autonomous Level 3 category vehicle."
Volkswagen's full commitment to electric vehicles is partly a result of the recent Diesel scandal. Volkswagen was found to have installed software in cars that ensured that less harmful emissions were measured during test drives than were actually emitted. To partly make up for the tampering, Volkswagen has pledged to start promoting electric cars.
By: Kelly Bakker
Source + photo: Volkswagen
